Thursday is the final day the Rockets can swap Omer Asik for players they can flip at the trade deadline in February, and Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle hears GM Daryl Morey intends to pull off a deal before the team departs for Friday’s game at Indiana (Twitter link). The Rockets are unlikely to trade for a player better than they perceive Asik to be, Feigen writes in his latest piece on the talks, but it sounds like a trade will happen nonetheless, as conflicting reports obscure the notion of the Celtics as the front runners to land the Turkish center. Here’s more from around the league:
- Cavs owner Dan Gilbert isn’t pleased with the team’s sub-.500 start and has green-lighted GM Chris Grant to make deals, tweets Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio. Cleveland has “varying degrees of interest” in Evan Turner and Jeff Green, writes Jason Lloyd of the Akron Beacon Journal.
- Reggie Jackson will be up for an extension this summer, and the stumbling block could involve his role with the Thunder instead of financial concerns, as The Oklahoman’s Anthony Slater examines. Jackson tells Slater that he wants to start.
- Luke Ridnour started all 82 games for the Wolves last year, but he’s fallen from the rotation for the Bucks this season. The 11th-year vet says the lack of playing time has been tough on him, but he isn’t worried about how it may affect his free agency this summer, observes Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- In an interesting piece for SBNation.com, Tom Ziller makes the case for why a general manager’s confidence in his ability to find value anywhere in a draft will prevent “institutional tanking” from happening in the NBA.
- Speaking of tanking, it’ll be tough for the Lakers to make the playoffs, says Jeff Caplan of NBA.com, who believes they’re better off not trying to do so.
Luke Adams contributed to this post.